"Nuts!" - The Story behind the Famous American Reply to the German Surrender Ultimatum

Military History Now ^ | 15 September 2020 | Gary Stern

[cld51860]

79th Anniversary of the best response to a demand to surrender demand... ever.

[cld51860]

The closest rival I can think of is the Brit’s response at Arnhem, at least as depicted in the film “A Bridge Too Far,” when the Germans demanded surrender. The British officer says “We haven’t the proper facilities to take you all prisoner. Sorry! ... Was there something else?”

[Species8472]

It was “Balls!” not ‘Nuts”.
My father was involved.

[Da Coyote]

Today’s generals would have replied, “You have not addressed me by the correct pronoun.”

[mass55th]

Back in the late 80's-early 90's, when I was doing research on the 54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments that served in the Civil War, I came into contact with an elderly Episcopal priest (Robert Shaw Sturgis Whitman), who lived in Lenox, Ma., and visited him at him home there. He was related to several historical figures, among them Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, Colonel of the 54th, and General Francis Channing Barlow of Gettysburg fame. He was a cousin of Shaw's. Shaw's sister Ellen had married Barlow, and they lived in the Lenox area. He remembered visiting her as a widow when he was a little boy. His father's sister had married General Anthony McAuliffe. At the time, I hadn't heard the story.

Whitman's great-grandfather was Royal Emerson Whitman. In 1871, he was a 1st Lieutenant, and assigned to be in charge of Camp Grant, near Tucson, in the Arizona Territory. On April 30, 1871, a group of Apaches that he had settled on a piece of land not far from the camp, were attacked, and murdered by a group of Tucson citizens, Mexican Americans, and members of the O'odham tribe. The men had left to go hunting, so all that were left in the camp were old men, women and children. Whitman relentlessly tried to get justice for the murders, but the people of Tucson chose not to convict any of the perps, and the government wasn't interested in pursuing it.

[Bull Snipe]

or maybe this “La garde meurt mais ne se rend pas!” (”The Guard dies but does not surrender!”). Supposedly said by General Cambronne at Waterloo. One account I read states what he really said was “Merde” French for sh*t.

[Bonemaker]

“...but the people of Tucson chose not to convict any of the perps, and the government wasn’t interested in pursuing it...”

Don’t worry..Apaches got major revenge all the way up to at least 1886 and in isolated cases up to 1920’s in AZ and 1940’s on Mexican side.

[one guy in new jersey]

Translation issue?

[fso301]

I remember something about the perplexed German officer not understanding the meaning and asking for clarification to which another American told him something along the lines of “It means “Go to hell”.

[SunkenCiv]